Public Network Policy and Management: A Mainstay in Public Administration

Abstract

A “universal” euphoria towards network establishment in the public sector was apparent since the early 1990s, with a special focus on the three issues of governance: management, performance measurement and evaluation. The Permanent Study Group (PSG) “Public network policy and management”, one of the youngest EGPA PSG, launched at the 2013 EGPA Conference in Edinburgh was designed and conceived as a place for dialogue among academics, researchers and professionals at the European level. The PSG has promoted a dissemination strategy suitable to expand the network of public network scholars outside Europe (in cooperation with ASPA and other international association such as IRSPM, CLAD and IMPN). The chapter illustrates aims, activities and perspectives of this young EGPA study group. The dialogue developed in the last five years allowed us to identify some cutting-edge themes on which focusing future research on network policy and management. These topics are represented by the relevance of soft or intangible factors as predictors of network success (network trust, culture, personal relationships etc.) and by the criticality of network manager and network leadership as pivot of the network success.

Professor Olivier Keramidas prematurely passed away in the year 2017. His major contribution to European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) and to the European Public Administration community has been remembered on occasion of the opening plenary of the 2017 EGPA Annual Conference in Milan, Italy. This chapter is one more testament to his life of unflinching commitment—even in the most difficult personal circumstances due to his long illness—to the advancement of the theory and practice of public administration.